Winter Sun
by ncfan
Summary: Natsume Yuujinchou drabbles and oneshots.
1. False Impressions

Just a place for me to store my drabbles. Updates will likely be sporadic. I own nothing.

Spoilers up to chapter 3 of the manga.

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_False Impressions_

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She's a weak ayakashi who can, nonetheless, trick sensitive humans into believing she has a human form, and rarely does she have anyone to talk to, for the other ayakashi all want to eat her, and adult humans who can see her can sense the wrongness about her form. Any human who can tell that she's "off", not quite on the same frequency as them, fear her the way she fears other ayakashi.

There's no way to tell how long this has been the state of affairs for her; she can have been alone for eons or merely weeks. For one whose lifespan far outstretches those of mortals, time means little to her, and she's watched a child grow from afar only to come back one day and notice, astonished that that child is now a stooped old man, all the hair gone from his head.

There's no one to talk to, and she whiles her days out in silence, having only birdsong and the idle prattle of humans to listen to. It's a miracle she doesn't lose her voice, so long it's been since she's had occasion to speak. And oh, if she just had someone to talk to!

Wait. One of the human families has just acquired a little boy. She hadn't thought much of him at first—one human child is much like another—but he had chance to flee when he caught sight of her in her natural form.

_He can see me! _her heart exclaims, as she watches him run.

She lingers under the open windowsill while the boy is at school and listens to the grown humans talk. His name is Natsume Takashi—she wonders if he has any relation to the legendary Natsume Reiko, a human woman who once upon a time terrorized ayakashi somewhere to the south—and he apparently unnerves every human who has had the care of him by his ability to see ayakashi.

"_Weirdo."_

"_Liar."_

"_I haven't got the money to feed him. Take him next month, will you?"_

The boy hears these words as well as she does—nothing misses his sharp little ears. He spends more time away from the little house on the street than he does in it, returning only to sleep and get something to eat. Oftentimes he can be found hiding in an alleyway, or under a tree or a bush on the outskirts of town.

Surely such a young boy wouldn't be able to pick up the inherent wrongness of her human disguise. And surely he'd like someone to talk to.

She's been so hungry, for so long. For a moment, she considers lulling the boy into a sense of security so she can devour him and glut her horrific hunger. But consideration and loneliness stays her from this path. If she eats him, she'll just be alone again—better to let him live and have him to talk with forever, if need be. And he's such a pretty child. It would be a shame to eat such a lovely human child.

There he is again, crying, huddled up against an abandoned crate. The winter sun shines off of his bright silver hair, rippling like sunlight off of clear water.

"_I've seen you around."_

She can feel the brittle weight lift from her bones to have someone to talk to, even if she can't unlock the doors of her heart to be honest. Natsume, on the other hand, has no trouble pouring his heart out to her, crying, smiling, laughing at a pitiful joke she made that nonetheless seems to his childish ear quite witty. He's dazzling in sunlight and the ayakashi's poor heart is warmed to see him smile.

_My raw heart feels as though there is some kindness again. Ah, if only this could be truth._

And if only it could go on.

But he won't talk to her anymore.

He's figured out that she's not what she appears to be, and he closes his eyes and his heart against her. All her treaties—_"I just wanted to talk to you", "I just wanted to talk to you, Natsume", "Won't you talk to me?"_—fall on deaf ears, and his little face screws up as though he will wail, but he gives no sound.

Just as soon as she had found someone to talk to again, he's gone, and no matter how she pleads, he will not respond. She simply wilts, withers away to nothing until the sunlight shines straight through her skin, and eventually, he goes away, never to be seen again.

If only she'd been able to make him understand that she had just wanted to talk to him.


	2. let's allow the emptiness to fill

Spoilers up to chapter 19 of the manga.

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_let's allow the emptiness to fill_

* * *

_Though the boy has been living with them for, what, two, three months now?, Shigeru will have to ruefully admit that he knows him about as well as he knows a total stranger. It's odd, how Takashi is both a stranger and so very much a part of his life now, and yet, he still has to struggle to have a normal conversation with him, even a short one._

Shigeru doesn't have much experience around children. He and Touko never had any children, and he doesn't have any siblings, so there's no question of his having any nieces or nephews. Touko's kin all live too far off to visit regularly, and Shigeru's not sure if there are any young children on her side of the family either.

They've never had children. There was never enough money or enough time, it seemed. Not enough stars in the sky to allow to devote time and effort to having children. By the time there was enough money and there was enough time, it simply wasn't an option—he and Touko were simply too old to have children. There was enough time, and yet there wasn't any time left at all.

Sometimes, he regrets that they hadn't taken a chance and had children when they were younger. Sometimes, Shigeru imagines how life would have been different if they had just taken that risk. If he and Touko had had children when they were still young, those children would probably be grown by now. They might have children of their own. There would be small children running around the house on Sundays, and instead of finding himself childless at this age, he would be able to call himself a father. A grandfather.

He imagines phantom children running barefoot about the house, and then Shigeru banishes the image because of the weariness that creeps over his heart and his mind when he imagines things that could have been but never will be.

He's never been good at conjuring fantasies. This is reality: he and Touko live alone in the house that he's lived in since childhood. They have no children. They live here alone. And when they die, this house will not be given to a beloved child or a doted-upon grandchild, but will simply be put back up on the market, and probably be sold to strangers. All that they were, their essence, their lives, their experiences, will simply fade away and be forgotten, because there will be no one to remember them.

So the house remains a place too-empty and too-silent, even with Touko's humming and the trailing melody of the radio. The wind blowing through the trees outside gives the whole place a forlorn, neglected aura, and more and more, Shigeru imagines this place falling into disrepair after he and Touko are gone. The walls will collapse, the wood will rot, and eventually the land will be swallowed back by the forest.

What a waste that will be.

And then, Natsume Takashi comes to live with them.

Takashi is one of Touko's more distant relatives—very distant, considering Shigeru had never heard of him before Touko brought the boy's existence to his attention. Apparently, he's an orphan who's been through God's own amount of foster parents. By Touko, everyone she's spoken to describes him as a problem child and a nuisance, but apparently she doesn't believe it herself. She says she got "_a bad feeling_" when she spoke with his current foster parents.

Personally, at first, Shigeru can't say that he had the same bad feeling.

"_You need to respect the boy's wishes. You said Natsume Takashi is a teenager, didn't you? He's old enough to decide whether or not he wants to live with someone on his own."_

_Touko shakes her head, a grimace of frustration flitting over her lips. "I know that. I just… There's something wrong about them, the way they act around him, and the way Takashi-kun acts. I get a bad feeling about that."_

_Shigeru sighs, and rubs his forehead wearily. He trusts Touko's judgment; really, he does. But he hasn't seen the boy for himself, hasn't been able to see the situation with his own eyes to judge it for himself. Touko could be right, or she could just be letting her worry override her more sensible other instincts. "We'll start making inquiries as soon as we can, I promise. But we have to go through proper channels first. And we can't force the boy to live with us. If he doesn't want to go, he won't go."_

Touko's descriptions of Takashi are enough to worry him, admittedly on a more detached level than her. After all, Shigeru has never met the boy, has never met his foster parents. Yes, the whole thing sounds fishy, the way she described their sketchy treatment of him and the way their eyes seemed to go just a touch cold when they spoke of him, but there is a proper way to do this, and that proper way must be observed.

Deep down, Shigeru has to wonder if maybe, Touko hasn't registered Takashi the same way she would a wounded animal. She's always had a weak spot for the sick and the injured, and more times than he can remember they've played host to a wounded fox, an ailing stray cat, or any number of other creatures. Frankly, Shigeru was most of the times more concerned about Touko being scratched or bitten by one of her strays than he was about the health of het creature itself.

She would cry, every time one of them died, cry as though the thing that had died had been a child of her flesh instead of a mangy dog or a badly-scarred cat. He would always pat her shoulder, hug her, do whatever he could to try to make her feel a little better, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't understand. Surely Touko understood that the animal's she took in were likely to die anyways? Shigeru could take one look at most of them and see Death's hand clinging to their pelts, so why couldn't Touko? Or maybe she could, but it just didn't sink in for her. Maybe she just couldn't keep from becoming attached to them, even if they died under her hands fifteen minutes after she found them.

She's reacted to Takashi exactly the same way she would to a wounded animal. That's all Shigeru can suppose accounts for her feelings of urgency, for her sense that something is seriously wrong, for her "bad feeling."

Then, Shigeru learns that Takashi has been hospitalized.

_The boy lies in bed, seeming to be asleep. He's pale as the sheets of his bed, with a mop of strange silver hair and bags under his eyes. He seems to fade into the sheets, so pale and colorless is he, as though all the life has been siphoned out of him and he's left only with this pallid, washed-out form._

_He's painfully thin, from what little Shigeru can make out of him, and so thoroughly bandage-wrapped that he shudders to think of what lies beneath. The more he looks at the boy, the more he sees, the more Shigeru feels the blood drain out of his face._

After what he saw and what he heard in the hospital that day, Shigeru finds himself seeing the issue quite firmly from Touko's point of view. No, they can not afford to wait, however unseemly it might be to speed the process up to have Takashi live with them instead of his current foster parents.

So Natsume Takashi comes to live with them, packing up what little there is of his belongings as soon as he's discharged from the hospital. His former foster parents are barely able to hide their relief to see the back of him. His current foster parents have been caught in a flurry of cleaning the spare bedroom—Shigeru's childhood room—for Takashi's use.

All should be well, shouldn't it?

No. The weeks pass on, by and by, and though Takashi seems to become quite comfortable with Touko, the same can't be said for Shigeru and his new foster son.

The nature of his work means that, on most days, Shigeru doesn't get home until late in the evening, often after Takashi—who seems rather atypical of most teenagers in this—has gone to bed. On the days when he doesn't have work, Shigeru is usually stuck inside, buried in paperwork, and Takashi generally absents himself from the house on those days.

Their conversations are short and stilted; Shigeru's not entirely sure he can even call their talks "conversations" at all. They exchange questions about Shigeru's work, Takashi's schoolwork, and no matter what the setting, venue, weather or temperature of the day, Takashi doesn't make eye contact. Not once.

"_You're doing well at school, then?" Shigeru grimaces as he fishes around for something more to say. "You're not having any trouble fitting in?"_

_Takashi, who was peeling fruit for Touko, looks up to answer him, but as ever, he doesn't quite meet Shigeru's eyes. Sometimes those gray eyes of his, transparent as glass, go over Shigeru's head, but they seem to be centered on his mouth today. "No." He smiles that smile, that painfully-obviously-false smile, the smile that opens too wide and shows too many teeth not to be manufactured. The smile that does not invite the breaking of walls, but seems to encourage the maintenance of all the barriers still between them. The smile of one who isn't expecting to stay here long._

"_None."_

Of course, these talks don't actually do anything to foster a sense of closeness between them. They seem only to invite the gap between man and child to grow wider. Takashi seems to be the sort of person that only speaks when spoken to; Shigeru is much the same, though he will speak if he has something to say. The point is, neither are naturally gregarious, and this does not lend itself to an understanding between them.

Never having had much experience with children, Shigeru can't help but feel awkward around Takashi. He tries not to make himself out to be an ogre, because he does quite genuinely like the boy, but somehow, he can't help but come off as so reserved that anyone would believe that he doesn't like to be spoken to. And Takashi, quiet as he is, shy as he is, quite sure as he is that this is a home no more permanent than any of his prior homes, does not approach him. Despite all his efforts not to come off as an ogre, Shigeru appears to have accomplished precisely that. He doesn't know what to say to the boy.

But he does like him.

It's odd, but Takashi reminds Shigeru of a strange girl he'd known once as a child. He's not entirely sure why at first. The girl had been everything Takashi is not—acerbic, mordant, and full of danger roiling just below the surface that even Shigeru, young as he was, could sense. She would wave a broom about or knock a rock thrown at her back at her attackers with a stick, and all the while with a snarling grin on her face and a keen, gnawing gleam in her pale eyes.

If there's any point of resemblance between that girl and Takashi, Shigeru supposes it could be that they both have that strange silver hair that gleams in the sun like winter sunlight. And that smile. That same, false smile that stretches too wide and exposes far too many teeth. But where Takashi's phony smile shows strain and tension, the girl's revealed, all too plainly, malice against those who threatened her, who mocked her, who called her a walking curse. All Shigeru had to do was look at her falsely smiling face to see, even then, that she wanted nothing more than for their ill will against her to rebound back on them.

All the same, she had been his friend, back in those long gone days, back before she stopped coming to his house, back before she vanished altogether.

Takashi reminds Shigeru of her. Just as she was not a normal teenager, Takashi is no normal child either.

He never complains about anything, even when Shigeru can imagine he'd want to. Remembering how he himself had driven his parents half-mad with his griping back when he was Takashi's age, Shigeru can almost laugh when he sees Takashi in the sort of situation he would have balked at back when he was the boy's age, but Takashi just perseveres through with that false smile, assuring Touko all the time that this is perfectly alright.

He can almost laugh, until Shigeru remembers why Takashi gives no complaint even when he ought to, and realizes that a child must have been quite harshly handled indeed to fear the consequences of grumbling.

So yes, though months go by and Shigeru has time to get used to the idea of, at last, having a child, even if not a child of his flesh, that will remember him and Touko when they are gone, someone to give the house to who will understand the significance of it, Takashi seems to grow no more comfortable here. He seems to be waiting, just waiting, for the day that they decide they're tired of him just like everyone else did.

Shigeru doesn't know exactly how to make Takashi understand that it's alright. Just saying it wouldn't do the trick—words can be empty, so, so empty—and he doesn't think he could find the words with which to say it anyways. But he does want him to know that. _It's alright. We'll not make you go anywhere. You don't have to fear rejection, not anymore. Not here._

If those words could be spoken, perhaps they'd make all the difference. Perhaps they wouldn't. There's no way to know for sure.

But sometimes, there comes a rare moment. In some quiet moment, under the autumn trees with a chilly wind cutting through their bones, Takashi smiles.

He smiles, a real smile. Instead of the too-wide, too-tight stretch of his mouth that Shigeru has seen thus far when Takashi tries to smile, there's only a faint, gentle tug on his lips, his eyes crinkling. However faint it is, there's more feeling there than anything else he's offered before.

And that's enough.


	3. nursing the wounds

_nursing the wounds_

* * *

The house is quiet with the smooth, deep darkness of night. Takashi is long-asleep in his new room, and Shigeru had to give his apologies for not being able to be with Touko to see the boy into his new home—he is at work late, again.

As for herself, Fujiwara Touko is going through the clothes of her new charge, trying to determine what needs to be washed, what needs to be patched up, what can be kept, and what ought to be thrown away.

Rather depressingly, "thrown away" is turning out to be the answer for a lot of these clothes. They're either old and worn, or torn so badly that Touko wouldn't let Takashi out of the house wearing them. He doesn't appear to have taken very good care of his clothes over the years (Though Touko knew a lot of boys when she was Takashi's age who were just the same way).

_Or perhaps, _she thinks to herself with uncharacteristic grimness, _perhaps this is simply all he was given to start with._

Touko sighs heavily and shakes her head, jumping a little bit as wind batters on the window panes (_Oh, when have you ever let the wind spook you like that? _she scolds herself). She continues laying out jeans and t-shirts and tells herself that it's no use dwelling on the past anymore.

_But don't forget, _a small voice tells her. _Don't forget…_

"_Well, here we are."_

_Touko and Takashi come to stand outside of the house, a stiff, brisk wind beating at their backs. Touko smoothes a hand over her hair to keep it from blowing all around her face, and looks over at Takashi to gauge his reaction._

_The boy's silver-gray eyes are slightly glazed over as he drinks in the sight of the house, of its size and architecture. There's a smile on his face, but the smile is the same one Touko's seen Takashi wearing before—no herald of joy, just a rote example of the sort of reaction he thinks she wants out of him. The smile on Touko's face fades just a little, to see it._

"_It's… It's nice," he says after a moment, not looking at her. "Thank you, Touko-san."_

_Touko ushers him inside wordlessly. That has to be the sixth time today she's heard him say 'thank you.' When, she wonders, did it stop being genuine, and just another thing Takashi does in the interest of keeping her from getting angry?_

He did not ask for supper, though he ate what was put in front of him with yet more thanks, and without giving Touko any indication of his likes or dislikes as regards to food. After that, Takashi practically fell into the futon laid out in front of him, uncaring of his still-tender flesh from the 'incident' that led to his recent hospital stay. In all that time, Takashi smiled at Touko and said that everything was alright, so many times that Touko suspected he was trying to convince himself of that, as much as he was her. But there was wariness behind his eyes, and he could not hide it.

Rationally, Touko knows that progress isn't going to be made over night. One good day isn't going to erase a lifetime of pain, of rejection, of walking on pins and needles, and Touko knows that. He'd agreed to come live with her and Shigeru that day in the hospital, but that doesn't mean he trusts either of them. She knows that it will be a while, perhaps a long time indeed, before Takashi is truly comfortable here, comfortable with her and Shigeru. But it still frustrates her to think of how long it could be, and hurts to think that he must see her the way he's seen all those who have come before her: someone to placate, someone to appease, but not someone to trust or love.

Touko can't say that she's ever been looked at that way before.

_This one should be alright, _she decides of one shirt, finding that she can't even poke her finger through the hole in the cotton fabric. _I can stitch this one up myself; I don't have to take it to a seamstress. Now, Takashi-kun is rather short. He must be due for a growth spurt soon; he is at that age. I'll have to buy him a school uniform right away, and just get another one if he outgrows it, but what about these other clothes? Should I replace them now, or wait until he grows?_

No, of course it won't be easy. Even if Touko had not known that in her heart, she would have had the words of Takashi's past foster parents ringing in her ears; Touko had done her best not to listen to them, but she couldn't help but hear every derogatory thing they said about him. It will be a long, uphill battle to convince Takashi that she and Shigeru aren't like the ones who came before them. To convince him that this is home.

But Touko won't be like all the rest. That much, she knows. She refuses to be like the rest, who did not accept Takashi into their hearts and refused to even try. She refuses to be like those who had to whip up wild stories about what he was like to excuse their own behavior. The Takashi Touko knows is nothing like the Takashi of his previous foster parents' tales. The Takashi she knows deserves better.

She'll be a parent to him, no doubt. But Touko will also do all she can to make him see that here is safe, here he does not have to fear the consequences of not putting up a face of perpetual cheer and cringing politeness.

Touko's dearest hope is to make Takashi see that he does belong here.

_In the morning, she calls him Takashi instead of Takashi-kun. If he feels surprise or dismay at this, it does not show on his face._

_Touko knows that any honorific, even one of affection, serves only as a barrier._

_It's just one step in the right direction, to dispense with it._


End file.
